


The Music Box

by NegativEvitageN



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Tragedy, M/M, Sherstrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegativEvitageN/pseuds/NegativEvitageN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two figures and a music box lie in a bed,<br/>Hands grasped tightly and something unsaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music Box

**Author's Note:**

> No names are stated. Everything is left up to the interpretation of the reader.

Soft metal clinking to the melody of Fur Elise fills the otherwise silent room, small bumps on a slowly rotating wheel plucking at taut metal tines.

A small porcelain figurine dressed in a lacy pink tutu dances atop the spinning plate in a permanent ballerina pose. The dancer supports herself solely on her toes and extends her body to the tallest, her arms forming a halo around her uptilt head.

The wheel slows, catches on one of the tines, and pulls to a stop. The last vibration of music subsides and fades away, and the room returns to its dampened silence, the ballerina stuck unmoving in its eternal pose.

“Play it again,” a man’s voice, soft, low, strained with exhaustion. His eyes are darkened with tears gone and past, reddened with the effort of pain, his breathing forced into a steady rhythm to fight against another attack of helpless sobs.

The room is dark, lights off, thick curtains drawn, almost a pitch black save for the blue glow leaking above the curtains. Eyes adjusted to the darkness could make out two figures lying motionless on a bed, facing each other, a music box set up between them.

The ballerina strains under watchful eyes, strains as it waits for its next chance to dance.

The other figure on the bed gives the man’s hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance, of love, of every single emotion he could possibly convey with that one simple gesture. Wordlessly he lets go of his hand and reaches up between them, taking hold of the wooden box, tilting it to an angle where the ballerina would fall off if she wasn’t attached, and winds up the contraption again. 

The tinking of metal resumes and Fur Elise clinks away at them once more as he gently sets the box back down between them, immediately returning his hand to the other’s.

He wants to speak up. He wants to say every word of reassurance in the English language and then maybe some more in other languages he didn’t even know. But he doesn’t. He squeezes the hand tightly, wanting nothing more than to console. 

The room remains silent save for the clinking melody of the music box and the slow, calculated breathing of both men.

Eyes adjusted to the darkness could now see the pain and unspoken attempt of comfort written across each man’s face. They stare into each other’s eyes, searching for answers that they will never find, and accept simply that, if nothing else, they still have each other.

Each other, and a music box, full of years of hidden memories and invisible meaning, depth beyond anyone else’s understanding.

A music box that, for all intents and purposes, was all they had left from all they had lost.


End file.
